Moderna’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, warned on Wednesday that the coronavirus “will not go away” and that the world will have to live with it “forever”.
“We will live with this virus, we think, forever,” said Bancel.
Bancel made the observation when speaking at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, reports CNBC. He said health officials will always have to be on the lookout for new variants of COVID-19 for new vaccines to be produced and that “SARS-CoV-2 is not going away.”
Several new variants have been detected, one from the UK being significantly more infectious. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that a new separate variant was also detected in Japan.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of the new variants: “The more the virus spreads, the greater the chance of further changes in the virus. Most notably, the transmissibility of some variants of the virus appears to be increasing.”
Moderna’s two-dose vaccine has been shown in vaccine tests to offer about 95% immunity to coronavirus. Moderna officials said at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference on Tuesday that the vaccine should provide immunity for at least a year.
Tal Zaks, Medical Director at Moderna, said the biotechnology company would be investigating whether a third booster injection would increase the immunity offered by the vaccine.
“We think there is an opportunity to boost, especially those at high risk, if necessary,” said Zaks.
As CNBC notes, the WHO currently claims that there are four endemic coronaviruses worldwide, but none is as contagious as SARS-CoV-2.